UPDATE: Since writing that Instagram statement, Killer Mike has written a longer op-ed for Billboard about the ongoing police-brutality issues in Ferguson and elsewhere in the U.S.: “Support these victims. On the day they were murdered by rogue officers, all of our rights drained onto that hot concrete along with that child’s blood. Government should fear the people, not the other way around.” Read the whole thing here.

This past weekend, a police officer in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri shot and killed an unarmed 18-year-old named Michael Brown — only the latest absurd police killing in a summer that’s been full of them. The officer alleges that Brown had been trying to take his gun, but witnesses claim that Brown had his hands up and was trying to surrender — all this after an argument about Brown and his friend walking in the street instead of the sidewalk. Every new detail of the case gets worse, and people around St. Louis have been heavily protesting and clashing with police ever since. Yesterday — and honestly, we probably should’ve posted this earlier — the great firebrand rapper Killer Mike took to Instagram and posted a shot of Brown’s devastated parents, tagging it with a powerful, from-the-heart piece of writing about the human costs of Brown’s killing. Here’s what he wrote:

We are human beings. We deserve to be buried by out children not the other way around. No matter how u felt about black people look at this Mother and look at this father and tell me as a human being how u cannot feel empathy for them. How can u not feel sympathy for their pain and loos. These are not “THOTS, niggas/niggers, hoes, Ballers, Divas. These two people are parents. They are humans that produced a child and loved that child and that child was slaughtered like Game and left face down as public spectacle while his blood drained down the street. Look at the pain of this mother, look into her eyes. Look at the Man behind her. Look at that father made helpless and hurt that he cud not defend his seed. Don’t debate. Don’t insert your agenda. Save me the bullshit Black On Black Crime speech and look at these to Noble creatures called humans and look at what govt sanctioned murder has done. It has robbed them of their humanity and replaced it with pain and shame, suffering and hurt. I don’t care if others rioted or why. I don’t care that ball players and Rappers are what they shud be. I care that we as humans care as much about one another more. I care we see past Class, race and culture and honor the humanity that unites our species. Stop talking and LOOK at these PEOPLE. LOOK at these HUMANS and stand with them against a system allows a Human PIG to slaughter their child. Forgive any typos love and respect u all.

(via Killer Mike’s Instagram)

There’s not another thing I could possibly add.